appropriate for them to turn around and use that cheap money to trade for profit. >> reporter: the new rules require federal regulators to police the system before they were simply encouraged to do so. today the president of the united states made a major move to fix a broken system, looking to limit the amount of risk any one bank in america can take on in an effort to make their executives rich. under these rules, your bank could no longer gamble with your money. >> as economics professor william black who has joined us a number of times pointed out this morning, this is a great start. and i could not agree more, or applaud the president or his administration more for their efforts, finally, to take on directly our bankers who have sought to exploit their special privileges, not to help our democracy or our country, but to help themselves to enrich themselves. joining us now, we welcome back in fact senator maria cantwell, democrat from the great state of

washington. and a member of the senate finance committee. she has been front and center pushing for stronger bank reform, including a proposed piece of legislation last fall in which you partnered with senator john mccain to propose the cantwell/mccain amendments to the senate legislation that would effectively try to reduce this exact type of gambling, gambling with other people's money. your reaction to the president's proposal, senator. >> i'm glad his president is turning his attention to this issue. i think the americans want to make sure that capital is flowing to main street and not just having wall street have the resources to keep using dark markets and putting our economy at risk. >> what will be the biggest resistance? in other words, this feels so obvious i think to anybody who doesn't run a bank, that allowing somebody to get free access to our government, to get money that they then use in a gambling parlor that's held in secret, a kindergartener knows that's not good, especially when it's depriving our country to advance our nation.

which is why it's been peculiar to me since a year and a half ago there's been so much resistance to this. where will the resistance from the president come from in the senate and in the congress? >> i think people will try to create loop holes in the language. as we've tried to have regulatory reform, it's clear lobbyists have been up here on the hill trying to water down the language to make sure they can still be trading in dark markets. if you talk to people on main street, they know the difference, that commercial banking is about protecting their deposits and investment, and that investment banking is about risk taking. so why put those two things together. and most people understand that when we repealed this law, glass steeg will, that a lot of problems occurred. they want to go back to the way things were. >> if you look at the resistance, it strikes me as obvious, and it doesn't even strike me as a political issue. i'll talk to democrats and they say, yes, this is terrible and they need to fix it. you have a piece of legislation

with the man who ran for president against the man who proposed the piece today that would fix it. which is why we sit here confused as to why it hasn't happened. >> well, i think that main street is making that very clear. people tried to hold on for a year, hoping that some of the programs that treasury was designing were going to help small business. but they haven't been strong enough, or been effective enough. and i think people are very clear, stop letting wall street use depositor money as a way to capitalize, and to continue what is dark market activity. and instead, get capital flowing the right way. to these businesses that are the heart of american job creation. so i think that just a lot of attention got paid in focusing on these big banks. and i think the american public is saying, it's time to stop this activity of having their capital being used for risky investments. >> senator, i want to bring in former governor of the state of

new york, former sheriff of wall street and guest on this program. your thoughts? >> this is huge. this is the first reform the president has proposed that goes fundamentally to the problems that created the crisis. it says to the banks, you will no longer use tax dollars to gamble. instead of using tax dollars to lend. on one side of the equation it means we reduce risk. on the other side of the equation as the senator said so well, it increases lending where we need it to revive the economy. gets rid of the disequilibrium that led to the crisis. the president is finally going to get ahead of the populism instead of behind it. a victory for paul volcker over tim geithner. tim geithner had been basically proposing reforms not going far enough. paul volcker is one of the great wise gentlemen of wall street -- >> and this man ran the federal

reserve in the late -- basically saw the inflation crisis and given credit for solving the american inflation crisis in the early '70s and early 1980s through tough policies. >> made him unpopular, but he did what was right. he cares about what needs to be done for capitalism, for real capitalism. paul volcker said for months, the great dean of thinkers on wall street, who said that this is the reform we need. many of us had followed behind him. the white house had been listening to tim geithner and larry summers, the voice of modern investment banks that want to gamble with our money but not be held accountable, finally whether it's because of the politics of it or because the president took a hard look at it and he's determined paul volcker was right. these reforms are critically important and it's just amazing and important we're finally getting to this point. >> it's a huge day. i couldn't be more pleased politically just to see that the government actually gets it, and is going to try to deal with it. let's talk with the politics briefly. senator cantwell, if we can,

there's a poll for everything. but there's a poll that shows 53% of obama voters would go back to voting for democrats in 2010, knowing that there's an election less than a year away obviously, if democrats got tougher on wall street. so 53% who voted for scott brown would go democrat again gh 2010, if democrats got tougher on wall street. how much did the election a couple of days ago affect the politics of how the president of the united states looks at the issue with the banks? >> well, i think there's a lot of frustration with voters out there about the state of the economy. and i think what the president is showing is he is going to double down and focus on that. and he's going to make sure that capital starts flowing in it right direction. so we're going to work to make sure those reforms are implemented in congress. >> senator cantwell, thank you for your time today. governor, thank you so much. >> great to be here. >> president, thank you for stepping into the fray and addressing what i know are

difficult, thorny issues. the banks make a small fortune gambling with other people's money. not an easy fight, but a critical one if we're going to restore capitalism in america. the president's plan a great first step. as we all know, there's lots more that needs to be done. that's why we have time on our side in a sense. coming up in the half hour, we're going to break down the secret markets and back room trading that still goes on not at the commercial banks, but in that shadow banking system. and why are they still keeping those secrets at aig and was aig simply used to bail out the shadow banks? is that a way to hide risk from american people? we'll get into that in the moments to come. we are back on the dr show right after this. ( sneeze )

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welcome back. we are here with what you need to know about a hugely important decision today from our supreme court. and hope inspiring as the president's decision is on the banks today, this one, well, it will make you swallow and do a gut check. the supreme court overturned 100 years of campaign finance laws tea. today. back in 1905 a man we look up to on this show as one of our role models, the president of the united states at the time was teddy roosevelt. and he called for a ban at the time, 100 years ago, on corporate political donations. and i quote the president. he says, this is teddy roosevelt, there is no enemy of free government more dangerous and none so insidious as the corruption of the electorate.

referring to, again, differential yags by those who can spend on commercials. roosevelt the supreme court said is wrong. the 5-4 decision ends the limits on what a corporation can spend on political campaign ads. produce a movie, buy every commercial, you don't even have to disclose your name. you can call yourself americans for america. but secretly be in favor of any number of special interests. the ruling allows those corporations and most likely labor unions to spend as much as they would like to support or oppose candidates for president and for our congress. it also overturns part of the mccain/feingold law that intended to curb some of this. supporters of the ruling say these spending limits were a form of censureship. critics say the decision will undermine the fundamental integrity of the electoral process in our democracy and reduce the power of any individual voters who already

feels disenfranchised. >> this opens the floodgates and allows special interests money to overflow our elections and undermine our democracy. today's ruling decided by the slimmest of jorts guts our system of free and fair elections. >> and joining you now, tara ma loi, a group that supports campaign finance restrictions. tara, in brief that most concerns you about today's ruling? >> i think there's two really concerning aspects of the decision. first, how radical it is in terms of the law, and second, how disastrous it's going to be in terms of the practical effects it will have on our elections. as you noted, for decades, for absolutely almost 100 years -- >> teddy roosevelt, yes. >> yes. we've had restrictions on how much corporations could spend to expressly advocate the election or defeat of candidates. as long as we can all remember that has been the situation of our elections. not only on the federal level, but also in 24 states. for the first time now, the

corporate coffers are unleashed. we will see the effects of a flood of money into candidate elections. and just as a point of reference, the irs estimates i've looked at show that corporations have profits up to $1 trillion per year. the average election for congress would only be about $1 million, $2 million, $3 million spent. so you can see very quickly how easily a corporation could easily overwhelm the elections. >> you see how little money it takes for any corporation or special interests, not just corporations, that any interest has to send to washington, d.c. they get billions and trillions in very little investments. what's the biggest difference between a corporation and a person? in other words, why would you argue that a corporation isn't a person at all? >> well, we all -- it's a common-sense proposition. corporations do not vote. they do not run for office.

most do not believe that they have unalienable rights bestowed on them by their creator. for decades the supreme court has recognized this, it has recognized that corporations actually enjoy legal benefits. they have perpetual life. they have limited liability. >> last question, and this is sort of an irony. maybe i'm wrong, but i don't think that i am, am i correct that it's the 14th amendment that even allows for this? in other words, the same amendment that basically liberated the slaves, that's also being utilized to empower corporations to pretend to be people and spend unlimited on elections in this country? >> i think the 14th amendment was how initially corporations got some traction. it does not matter who is speaking. it doesn't matter, you know, whether they're real or imaginary people. for the purposes of the first amendment now, corporations are the same as you and me. >> understood. tara, thank you for the analysis. appreciate it. speaking of the corrupting influence of specialized wealth

in this country, we just got some new numbers about what lobbyists were doing on capitol hill in 2009. as we all know, that while 2009 was a bad year for so many in america, massive job losses, foreclosures, lost savings, the list goes on, it was a record year on k street. afghanistan, the other cash crop, not just poppy, but straight-up good old-fashioned corruption and bribery. the nuflt releasing new numbers and it is much worse than you might think, and a big reason why america's effort to win that war could be in trouble unless we're honest about the fact that we don't have a bullet problem, we have a government, infrastructure, and cultural problem with the people you see there. the they're growing poppy because they need money. but first, looking for a clue on health care. democrats, really, republicans, rejoi rejoicing. are we just playing red

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welcome back. on health care, today democrats in disarray as they try to figure out their next move after that stunning gop upset in massachusetts that ended their 60-vote super majority in the u.s. senate. now, one option appears to be dead, a proposal for the house to simply rubber stamp the senate version of the bill. >> in its present form without any change, i don't think it's possible to pass the senate bill in the house. i don't see the votes for it at this time. >> president obama now suggesting he's open to a more piecemeal approach passing only parts of the health care bill. the democrats think are popular with the american people. >> the senate certainly shouldn't try to jam anything

through until scott brown is seated. the people of massachusetts spoke. he's got to be part of that process. i would advise that we try to move quickly to coalesce around those elements of the package that people agree on. >> senator-elect scott brown arrived on capitol hill today to a rock star reception, as the newest big man on campus for the republicans. even if he ran effectively as an anti-establishment and refused to use the word republican on his own website. kelly o'donnell live on capitol hill. where do the democrats go from here and how do republicans interpret this man who again positions himself as much as an anti-establishment candidate as he does a republican candidate? >> well, good afternoon, dylan. i don't think republicans are too concerned about that particular issue yet, because they are enjoying the glow of the attention. brought to their party and brought to their issues because of scott brown's success. we've asked him a number of

times when i was in boston and again here in washington how he's going to resist the forces of being more like his party, because he's pretty moderate in republican terms, and he continues to say he's beholding to no one and he's going to remain independent. we'll watch that closely. for democrats, when i'm talking to members, their staff, there is real concern and real frustration about what voters were trying to say. and the frustration of voters over issues like jobs. so what i'm hearing is, while they know health care is something they feel compelled to get done, they're very anxious to try to move on to deal with jobs. so one of the things i've been hearing today is that when the president makes his state of the union address next week, they hope to see in that some more specific terms of what the president would be willing to deal with on health care, and maybe that would be able to get democrats to the table, as you pointed out, speaker pelosi says the way it stands now, she's got too many in her caucus that just aren't satisfied with the bill as it stands. >> kelly, thank you so much. turning to the world of

entertainment, and boy, has it been entertaining. nbc confirms it has reached a deal with conan o'brien to end his tenure as host of the "tonight show." short-lived though it may have been. the deal is said to be worth a total of $45 million to a man that his supporters now call coco. about $45 million will go to conan's staff. conan will host his last show tomorrow night. and then start what he says will be the beginning of "the biggest drinking binge in history." with all that money, nothing to stop him. jay leno will come back as "tonight show" host on march 1st, subsequent, of course, to the airing of the winter olympics and the balance of nbc's programming for the month of february. former senator in 2008 presidential hopeful john edwards finally admitting he's the father of his former mistress' little girl. that after a series of denials,

in a written statement, edwards said "i will do everything in my power to provide her with the love and support she deserves." edwards' wife elizabeth told the associated press her quote, "the whole family feels relieved." just hours after john edwards released his paternity statement, he arrived in haiti. he said he just wanted to help in the relief effort in any way that he could. still ahead, breaking it down. president obama's new bank plan, a great first step for america, but there is so much more to be done. and in today's "town square," we talk to yet another haiti hero, a red cross volunteer in that country about how they are using the millions of dollars generated by people like you who have sent in $10 increments. millions of dollars that the red cross is deploying every day now to help survivors of that massive and tragic earthquake. for all the moments that make every day special.

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today the president talked about commercial banks, no longer being able to gamble with your money. that's a moment to be celebrated, to say the least, considering what we've all been through, and the exploitation that is being perpetrated against everyone in this country who pays taxes or keeps money in the bank. but what should be next on the president's list? i think we should be dealing with the other class of banks. not citigroup, not bank of america, but the shadow banks, who have little or no regulation, and work primarily in opaque secretive markets, not on exchanges to be seen. chief of those, goldman sachs, who today announced that they have never been more profitable. the headline, goldman sachs netting $13.4 billion in '09, topping their '07 record. compensation set "side for '09? $16.2 billion. goldman has their own spin on the roughly 50% raise they're

giving their employees this year over last. pointing out that it is their lowest all-time compensation, but only as a percentage of total revenue, which continues to get bigger. now, that might be more impressive bit of restraint on goldman sachs' part if they hadn't just made the record profits during a time of limited government assistance and windfall support for their business and every business they do business with. not to mention the money goldman's not paying out, gets internalized to the shareholders, and of course, those at goldman sachs who run the company, own millions of shares of the stock that continues to rise as they internalize the money that they take, exploiting the windfall benefits that they receive. good times, right? if that doesn't put you on your side, goldman also highlighted that they use your tax money to make over $500 million, sounds like a lot of money, in charitable contributions. think of it like the mafia giving money to the catholic church so everything kind of continues to work.

goldman sachs profits, of course, direct reflection of the additional problems that we're going to solve. look what happened today with the commercial banks. i truly believe we're on a path to restore rules-based capitalism, innovation, investment and hard work in this country. but there are still so many things that remain unaddressed. primarily, stopping the insurance fraud and here is exactly what i'm talking about. >> reporter: a key to goldman sachs' miraculous turn-around has been its relationship with aig. one that may have been based on fraud. the insurance giant sold goldman sachs cheap protection on goldman sachs' financial backs. even though aig didn't have the cash to pay for that insurance, when it all went south. think of it like aig selling goldman sachs the brooklyn bridge. goldman sachs may or may not suspect the too good to be true, but they're happy to make the

deal, free bridge. when it turns out aig in fact doesn't own the brooklyn bridge, the government steps in with taxpayer money for aig to deliver the promised bridge to goldman and the other banks. nobody loses. nobody goes to jail. everybody walks away happy with billions in their pocket in compensation. except for america, and the taxpayer. on the hook for it all. yet to this day, we've heard talk of investigations, but haven't seen computers carried out of aig's offices the way we did with the bernie madoff scam. nobody's going to to jail. and earlier this year the securities and exchange commission sealed the documents from aig for the next ten years. >> some oversight -- you can tell i'm worked up. some oversight falls under ben bernanke, the federal reserve run at the time by tim geithner was the one that pushed the money through this system to goldman sachs and the other banks. some of these practices were exempted completely by our

politicians in 2000, so there was no oversight at all. joining us now at outspoken critic of the current fed chairman and the way the federal reserve relates to america, and our banking system, independent senator from vermont bernie sanders. senator sanders, welcome. before we get into the fed and insurance fraud and all this business, real quick, your response to the president's proposals on the proprietary trading at the commercial banks. >> i think it's an important step in the right direction. i think the president is catching on to the fact that the american people are absolutely outraged by what went on in wall street, and as you've just reported, what is going on today. enough is enough. we need real financial reform. and in my view, as part of that reform, we need to replace chairman bernanke. >> so let's talk about that. why is that so important? >> well, for two reasons. number one, i have a lot of respect for mr. bernanke. he's smart. he's hard working. but you know what? his main job was to protect the

financial stability, the safety and soundness of our financial system. he failed. that's it. it's like a hockey goalie that allows 20 goals in the net. he failed. and i don't think you reward that kind of failure with reappointment. >> just a minute. briefly, there are those who argue, senator sanders, that he saved the system. what do you mean he failed? >> after the house burnt down, he got the fire engines there, and the hoses out. but that's a little bit too late. but the second point is, obviously he did not save the system, because if you mean by the system, not just wall street, but the real economy in america, we've got 17% of our people today who are either unemployed or underemployed. billions of people have lost their homes, and the economy is in the tanks. part of the responsibility of the fed is to fight for full employment. part of the responsibility of the fed is to protect consumers.

and you've got millions of people out there paying 25% or 30% interest rates on their credit card. part of the responsibility of the fed is to get money to small businesses and medium-sized businesses so they can create decent paying jobs. those are things after the bailout that he has not yet done. >> senator, i want to talk specifically about the shadow banking system. goldman sachs, morgan stanley, they don't keep deposits, they don't want my paycheck, they're in a different business, they take care of places like aig, ibm, big corporations. i talked how aig was basically their back stop. they were ensuring goldman and the other banks on their betting and how basically that was the brooklyn bridge that tim geithner and the fed delivered to those banks. why is it that we are still having such a hard time -- i noticed bloomberg news today, all these redactions once again in aig documents, from the federal reserve bank of new york, encouraging them not to

disclose critical information about the terms and reasoning behind the delivery of that money to these banks. why are we not being given information about why this money was being given out and now we watch that money being utilized by goldman sachs to book record profits? >> dylan, let me say two things. you're talking to one of the guys who, when i was in the house, helped lead the opposition to all of this deregulation. second of all, we have introduced legislation in the senate which has a lot of support to demand transparency. if the fed, among other things, has lent out trillions of dollars in 0% loans, it is incomprehensible to me that mr. bernanke is not making that information available to the public. >> what is your sense of the treasury's responsibility in disclosing those e-mails at aig,

which are so critical, particularly the use of the s.e.c. to basically hide those e-mails as if it was a proprietary trademark like for an ipod or cure for cancer? >> like i said, i believe in transparency. i think absolutely the american people have got to know, a, how we got into this disaster, hold the wall street people accountable, throw them in jail when they broke the law, and i think the treasury department has got to do everything that it can to facilitate that process. >> last question, do you think we're going to get a legitimate investigation into aig financial products, which seems to be the scene of the crime? >> if i have anything to say about it, we will. >> thank you, senator. appreciate it. again, the steps taken by the president today, definitely a good start. but besides the insurance fraud, we were just talking to the senator about, and the efforts to end too big to fail from a risk taking standpoint that the president's addressing today, what else is on the fix list? as you heard from the senator, we have to increase financial transparency, the ability to hide risk in undisclosed

locations, whether it was when enron did it or the way aig and goldman sachs did it more recently, we can't live like this any longer. we want to see all of the past ten years of e-mails to see exactly what went down and how aig sold that brooklyn bridge to goldman sachs effectively. we also need to ensure that real enforcers are in place for crackdown. we can no longer have crooked cops who effectively work for the robbers, or lobbying of trying to get a job working for the s.e.c. working for the robbers. and politicians, rein in the housing finance structure. fannie and freddie, which is where we create so many of our home loans in this country, are funding and creating home loans with money that does not exist because it is politically expedient for the politicians to create the easy flow of housing, allow the bankers to bonus themselves and when it all does, you know what, hits the fan, we get stuck with the bill. we need to put limits back in place that don't give these liberties to our financial executives. joining us now, a couple of

folks i have a tremendous amount of respect for. senior fellow at demoss. also former director of goldman sachs. also with us, founding editor of exiled.com. mark ames, seeing control over many societies, most notably russia in depriving the society of the resources it so desperately needs that you only get with the free flow of capital. paul volcker gets a huge amount of credit today for encouraging the president, and the president gets a lot of credit for going with paul volcker. but this is a direct rejection of his advisers' policies which were the ones that created a lot of this risk taking. and i'm referring to larry summers. >> absolutely. larry summers was behind the deregulation. he was at the signing ceremony for glass steegels from 1999. he was for the deregulation of the derivatives market which was

at the center of not just aig's financial products, but the entire mechanism of the market in terms of credit default swaps. all of the information that we were talking about, needing for it to be transparent, that at this point simply isn't. he introduced the idea of having things be nontransparent and nonregulated and supported it. for him to even be in a position to advising obama is wrong to begin with. the fact this is a sleight to him and okay kudos to paul volcker who's been very on the other side of the regulation issue, is a huge, huge step. rightly against him, and goodly for volcker. >> you've done a lot of reporting on larry summers, who's probably the least discussed. we're familiar with bernanke. we know geithner and how he basically resists the disclosure on aig and was at the new york fed when they were giving away 100 cents on the dollar. >> larry summers is sort of like the brain boat of this failed economic policy. and that's his whole career. he's like the genghis khan of

the whole system. after two years of his economic advice, the country's economy lapsed so much that the suicide rate rose to the highest in the world. they voted back in the communists. >> how about when he was at harvard? >> of course, harvard's practically bankrupt right now. >> was he doing credit default swaps? >> he forced them to even use their operating money, you know, to use that, and plays bets with that sort of money as well. the guy has left destruction everywhere he went. of course, russia was his biggest failure. i was in russia when he basically ran the economy out of the white house. under clinton. and he actually even wrote decrees that yeltsin signed and became law in russia. and we all know how that ended up. the economy collapsed 60%. and now we have putin running the show. people lost faith in capitalism, lost faith in democracy. this guy's got to go out. he's the biggest sort of enemy of the american people right now in the government. >> it appears we're off to a good start with the pro pry tar

i trading. if we get the aig documents, we'll be that much further down the line. thank you both for paying us a visit. i appreciate it. still ahead here, "busted," a new report exposing afghanistan's other cash crop. and you thought they did well with poppy, wait until you see how much their gdp comes from corruption and bribery. the '09 year of the lobbyist on capitol hill. what a year it was. high fives around town, lawyers on k street pushing special interests. had their best year in the history of lobbying. that was before today's supreme court decision. we'll talk about it. how can we not. and the latest from haiti. we'll talk to a volunteer from red cross. still to come in our "town square."

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take calcium and vitamin d daily. tell your doctor if you develop severe muscle, bone or joint pain, of if you have dental problems, as rarely jaw problems have been reported. the most common side effects include flu like symptoms, fever, muscle or joint pain, headache, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. share the world with the ones you love! and ask your doctor about reclast. or call 1-866-51-reclast. year-long protection for on-the-go women. welcome back. nice to see you. we are at the point of the program where we get to have a little bit of fun. it's time for "busted." putting the spotlight of transparency on folks who we think are simply misrepresenting the truth, or in some cases, manipulating the truth to try to undermine our ability to actually solve a real problem. remember when we said 2009 would be the year of the lobbyist? arianna huffington, pushing that reality. well, the numbers are in. and boy, do they back it up.

19 of d.c.'s biggest firms reporting soaring revenue last year. it sent them storming through the halls of congress, fighting for the very special interests that oppose bank reform. oppose health care reform. want to perpetuate the health insurance monopolies. and baby, it worked. while the banks and health care top all industries sending money to d.c., no one organization spent more than the chamber of commerce, according to open secrets. coming in with $144 million as a single organization. up 57% from 2008. of course, with the trillions that come in, that's a tiny investment considering the yield d.c. pays these businesses by helping them manipulate and rig systems. phrma, up 30% with their lobby. one lobbyist called it a once in a generation year. we call it special interest bribery at the expense of america. anyway, next, we're busting the bribery and corruption in afghanistan that may help us

understand more what's going on in that country, so that we can better address the problems there with something more than just a few bullets perhaps. a new report from the united nations office of drugs and crime notes that afghans pay the equivalent of $2.5 billion in bribes to make that country run every year. that is equal to 23%, a quarter of the gross domestic product of afghanistan. by coincidence or not, that percentage is almost equal to the opium trade, which according to the u.n., was estimated at $2.8 billion. figure half the economy are drugs and bribes. the u.n. collected the data by interviewing 7,600 people, 1,600 effectively a survey. but there's the data. finally, we're busting a former pro wrestler who may be using a horrific prank to try to generate publicity for himself.

a new american pastime apparently. the story starts in the augusta chronicle which interviewed don "moose" lewis that he's starting an all-white basketball league in 12 cities, including augusta. the release quotes him as saying it intends to start its inag ral season in june of this year with teams made up of "only players that are natural-born united states citizens with both parents of caucasian race." in an interview with the paper, lewis goes on to say, "there's nothing hatred about what we're doing," he also said, "the league would be about fundamental basketball" and not "street ball" played by "people of color." now, according to the atlanta constitution, and perhaps for the benefit of all of us, when you check out the so-called aaba, which is allegedly based in that city, there is no web presence for it.

nor is there any available mailing address, which makes us think, sounds like a stunt. but however you look at it, it's shameful. up next here, the opposite of shameful, another haiti hero, how the red cross is helping quake survivors in haiti talking to one of their own heroes in today's town square. and on "hardball," chris matthews talking to barney frank about the president's new plan for the banks, the elimination of proprietary trading or the efforts to do that so the gambling with your money at the bank is a thing of the past. introducing fast crystal packs. a new way from alka-seltzer plus to... get cold and flu relief in a taste-free, fizz-free powder. alka-seltzer plus. working together is a thing of beauty. like the incredible scent of gain detergent... and fabric softener. ( inhales deeply ) the incredible matching scents... magnifico! of gain detergents and fabric softeners. ole!

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welcome back to the crisis in haiti we go. another small aftershock hit

this morning in that country, as officials there say their top worries now are untreated injuries, as we've discussed over the past couple of days, and the potential outbreak of disease because of the living conditions for everybody in the wake of that quake. medical clinics have 12-day patient backlogs with 250,000 people in need of urgent care. camps house thousands of survivors, and could promote further outbreaks of diarrhea and other disease and infection that could make otherwise nonlife threatening injuries life threatening. they estimate 200,000 have died so far. and the homeless population in that country sits at 2 million people. 80,000 of those killed have been buried in mass graves. meantime, a small glimmer of hope from the netherlands, where a mercy flight carrying 106 haitian children landed earlier

today. the flight, a move to speed up the adoption of these children who had already been matched to new dutch parents before the quake. of course, one of the most important aid agencies on the ground in haiti, the american red cross. joining us live from port-au-prince, haiti, in today's "town square," red cross volunteer winnie. winnie, welcome. update us if you could on the state of, again, untreated and otherwise non-life threatening diseases that could further deteriorate. what can be done to intervene on that behalf, and what if anything can be done for that extraordinary homeless population? >> reporter: we've rolled out an incredible first aid effort. we have hospitals, which include both field hospitals that have surgical units, and all the type of wartime technology. you know, very nuts and bolts basic kind of care for people in

need. we also have mobile health clinics staffed with doctors. both from around the world and haitian doctors. there's a lot of hospitals in haiti that collapsed. and the doctors who weren't in those hospitals are now volunteering with the red cross, in one capacity or another. some of them are hiking up into the hills with our street first aid teams to find the injured people that decided, you know, the hospitals are overcrowded, i'm not even going to go. so now nine, ten days after this earthquake, they're sitting in their homes with festering infections that bandages have crusted open and are stuck to their wounds. they could become septic and die. and so that is our first priority. we pulled these bandages back ever so carefully, moistening them with regular drinking water, because we don't even have enough peroxide to take care of this kind of thing. the massive level that's needed. and we clean them with the antibiotics. we hand them out some pills to

take for antibiotic treatment afterwards. and some of these patients we see on a daily basis. we take care of their wounds every day. in our country, they would be in hospitals, getting specialized wound care. that's not even available at some small rural hospitals where i live. and here, we're taking care of them under trees, out in parks, and in open-air first aid clinics. so it really is a priority of our work. >> incredible, you did such an incredible job of sharing with those of us who are not there, and are so emotionally compelled by the images that we see in these stories that you tell, to try to do anything that we can. if you look at the next level of need, as you anticipate the next couple of days, and the next couple of weeks, what is it that most concerns you? >> reporter: besides the health situation of regular citizens that were trying to reach all

over this very large area that's been affected, we're also handing out water. and other kinds of relief items. you know, we're getting a lot of supplies in now. the pipeline seems to have opened up a bit. and streets in central downtown port-au-prince were getting cleaned out with heavy moving equipment and dump trucks today, so that's facilitating movement. and you can see, you know, little micro economies opening up again. people opening up their houses. we're giving them blankets and water and kitchen sets and hygiene sets so that they can start getting back to some kind of respectable living conditions. >> understood, winnie. >> reporter: even on the street. >> thank you so much. thank you for giving us a second to share those stories with us. we really appreciate it. of course, we encourage everyone to donate to the red cross via the web, phone or text. it's haiti to 90999. you can see where the money is headed. my name is dylan ratigan.

"hardball" with chris matthews starts right now. the obama drama, act two begins. let's play "hardball." good evening. i'm chris matthews in new york. leading off tonight, once more with feeling, one year after barack obama was inaugurated on a wave of hope and optimism, how did we reach the point they let a republican win massachusetts. the answer may be that the democrats misread the 2008 election. and that the wave that swept mr. obama in could just as easily sweep democrats out. did they believe, for example, that a vote for change meant a vote for sharp shift in ideology? that after eight years of bush that was suddenly ready to trust government to do things big and do them right.

can the democrats now turn the general anger against big-shots against republicans. that's our top story tonight. one area where the president may be able to capture the public attitude is by going after wall street and the big banks to take the regular person's anger at wall street and the economic powers that be and use it against republicans. today he proposed tough new limits on banks. can he get the public behind them? there's the here we go embarrassment of john edwards who admitted today, he finally did, what everyone suspected, that he was the father of rielle hunter's child. and he said his affair occurred when elizabeth edwards' cancer was in remission. latest update. edwards has landed in haiti to do good. the president suggesting he may take what he can get on health care reform. is that so with progressives? a big ruling from the supreme court today, the government may not ban political spending by corporations for candidates. who do you think likes that decn?